Circle Of OuroborusEleven Fingers

$20

In a complete reinvention of what is comfortable, CoO produce a landmark album within their already prolific catalogue that ranges from moments of post-punk atonality, to subtle melody countered by calculated agression. ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.

Named #7 top metal album of 2011, here is what Pitchfork had to say about Eleven Fingers: "Their newest, Eleven Fingers, is my favorite CoO to date, their best full-length since 2009's Tree of Knowledge, a collection released by Dominick Fernow's Hospital Productions. This new one, mastered by James Plotkin, is out on Handmade Birds...
...it's the strongest, most concise example of what they do, a dark and depressive sort of blackened post-punk that also manages to be catchy and anthemic. Eleven Fingers spins a darkly cavernous, bizarrely buoyant sound that really is akin to Ian Curtis and mates delving into the kind of black metal that came along after Lords of Chaos. It's raw but deep, and there's a lot folded into its layers: Pair it with Iceage, and it's punk; play it with Amesoeurs, and the more post-metal tendencies surface.
Even on the album's more stationary, droning rants, you get a sense of movement and release, something not always present in CoO's past material. They're better songwriters now, able to offer strong melodies and hooks, not just the originality of the aesthetic. In fact, the push and pull between these seven tracks feels impressively endless-- guitars buzz like synthesizers, drums pull you in with their wobbling rolls. More than on other recent offerings, they've found a way to re-introduce some of the black metal elements first associated with them: On opener "The Prayer", that deadened Curtis bellow is repeatedly interrupted by a full-on growl. Speaking of which, the most integral part of Eleven's upgrade are Klemi's vocals: The submerged, sadsack Mark E. Smith-patterned rantings are tuneful and (surprisingly) emotional. Overall, there's less distance. In the past you sometimes got the sense he was singing to himself in the next room; here, there's a weird connectivity, even if you have no idea what he's howling beneath all the fuzz.
The biggest surprise, and greatest pleasure, though, is that Circle of Ouroborus no longer seem all that weird. Sure, one of the things that's always made CoO interesting is that dogged adherence to their original, obsessively personal aesthetic. But if you didn't know the history, and didn't follow the timeline, Eleven Fingers would hit you like a great, haunting, moving post-punk record, not the culmination of a march inward by a couple of Finnish outsiders." 8/10 -PITCHFORK